Beginning to be Bad
by RockSunner
Summary: An AU set in The Bad Beginning. What if the Baudelaires hadn't gone to the beach? One shot. Spoilers for Book the 12th.


This is an AU set during "The Bad Beginning." What if the Baudelaires hadn't gone to the beach? All characters belong to Daniel Handler, not me. There are spoilers for Book the 12th here.

**Beginning to be Bad**

If you are interested in a story with a happy ending, you would be better off reading some other story. The three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, were intelligent, charming, and resourceful children, and they had pleasant facial features, but one day something terrible happened that changed their lives forever.

Their parents had sent them out for a day at Briny Beach. Just as they were about to board the rickety trolley, Violet turned to her siblings.

"Did you get the feeling something was wrong this morning?" Violet asked.

"Yes," said Klaus. "They were too eager to get us out of the house. Mother looked extremely worried."

"Pellygro," said Sunny, which her siblings understood to mean, "Our parents may be in danger. I recommend we go back and try to help."

The children turned away from the trolley and walked back to their enormous mansion.

"We can't just go in the front door," said Klaus. "They'll just send us away again."

"I know," said Violet. "We can use the experimental elevator I've been building in the back yard. We can ride it up to my bedroom window and get in that way."

The elevator was a plywood platform attached to a metal framework that worked like telescoping tongs. They all got on and Violet cranked them up to her bedroom window on the third floor. They tiptoed downstairs and sneaked close to the dining room, where they heard voices: the voices of their parents and a raspy voice they had never heard before.

"Excuse me," the children heard their father say. "I believe you have mistaken our home for your own, and I must ask you to leave, after untying us from these chairs."

"I'm pleased my disguise worked so well," said the raspy voice. "You don't recognize me, do you? I'm Count Olaf, and I'm here to get my revenge after all these years!"

"Your disguise was pathetic as usual," said their mother, "We knew perfectly well who you were, Olaf. Bertrand was just being polite."

"It was your sudden ferocious attack when we opened the door which caught us off guard," said their father. "We're not as strong as we used to be in our lion-training days."

"Forget your lion-training days. Remember that night at the opera years ago when you murdered my parents with poison darts?" asked Olaf.

"He's lying... he has to be," Violet whispered to Klaus and Sunny.

"It was the most interesting night at the opera I've even had," said their mother calmly. "I kept the poster of _La Forza del Destino_ to remember that murder. I even showed it to my children."

The Baudelaire children gasped and clutched one another in shock.

"Speaking of your precious children, where are they?" asked Olaf. "My revenge will include them, too."

"We sent them away for the day," said their father. "You won't be able to get your clutches on them."

"Oh, but I will," said Count Olaf. "The sixth most important financial adviser in the city is an intimate friend of mine. She's tricked your idiotic banker, Mr. Poe, and substituted a will which will give me custody. I'll steal your fortune from them after you're dead." He gave a cackle of laughter.

"You monster!" said their mother.

"Am I a monster? I had good role models in you," said Olaf. "Now for the fire. I've been building up my expertise in arson for this day."

The children heard a whoosh of flames as Olaf began setting things alight.

"Ta-ta, Baudelaires!" Olaf cried. "I hope you keep burning... in hell." With that, he ran from the burning mansion.

Violet was sobbing softly. "Our parents are murderers!"

"Blookin," said Sunny, which meant "They're still our parents and we have to help them."

The three children rushed to the dining room. Klaus and Violet found carving knives in the silverware cabinet to cut their parents free of the ropes. Sunny helped with her teeth.

"Children, I wish you hadn't come back," said their mother, "We sent you away to try to keep you out of this."

"Too late for that now," said their father. "Now, how are we going to get out? There's too much fire down here to get out a door or window, and Olaf pushed over a bookcase onto our escape-tunnel trapdoor."

"Upstairs to my bedroom!" said Violet. "We can get out using the experimental elevator."

When they were safely in the back yard, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny stared for a moment at their home going up in flames. It seemed to them that everything they thought they knew about their comfortable life was going up in flames as well.

"Where will we go now?" asked Klaus.

"We belong to a secret organization called the V.F.D. which has a safe training facility in the Mortmain Mountains," said their father. "That's where we'll go."

"What... what happened between you and Olaf?" Violet asked.

"We had you children late in life and there's a lot about our past we never told you," their mother said. "The V.F.D. is a noble organization dedicated to making the world quiet, eliminating trouble."

"Before you were born, there was a schism in the organization," their father said. "Your mother and I had to assassinate certain enemies. Two of them were Count Olaf's parents."

"There was a side benefit," said their mother. "Olaf is a distant relative. When he became an orphan we got custody of him, and all his family fortune became ours. It's the source of our wealth."

"So, when Olaf said he was going to get custody of us and steal our fortune, he was just trying to get his own back?" Klaus asked.

"He failed, that's the important thing," said their mother. "Just like I told him he would fail when he swore revenge against us at six years old. A year later he ran away and he's been living by crime ever since."

"Karloff," said Sunny, meaning "This is horrible. I can't bear it."

"You'll understand in time, all of you," said their father. "It's time we brought you into the family business."

"We don't have a choice," said Violet. "You're our parents, no matter what you've done. You had noble reasons?"

"Of course we did," their mother assured them.

The family went to the Valley of the Four Drafts and the children were trained. They eventually became feared assassins themselves, the "Bad Baudelaires." Violet invented weapons and lethal traps. Klaus and Sunny worked as a team; he researched poisons, and she cooked them up. They assassinated many enemies, including Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor. They also dealt with several foolish people who got in the V.F.D.'s way, such as Mr. Poe and Geraldine Julienne.

There are times I wonder, however: are they really any better than the villains they fight?


End file.
